A Cross-Cultural Dialogue on Health Care Ethics

A Cross-Cultural Dialogue on Health Care Ethics

Synopsis

The ethical theories employed in health care today assume, in the main, a modern Western philosophical framework. Yet the diversity of cultural and religious assumptions regarding human nature, health and illness, life and death, and the status of the individual suggest that a cross-cultural study of health care ethics is needed.

A Cross-Cultural Dialogue on Health Care Ethics provides this study. It shows that ethical questions can be resolved by examining the ethical principles present in each culture, critically assessing each value, and identifying common values found within all traditions, It encourages the development of global awareness and sensitivity to and respect for the diversity of peoples and their values and will advance understanding as well as help to foster a greater balance and a fuller truth in consideration of the human condition and what makes for health and wholeness.

Excerpt

This book is the result of the work of a Canada-Thailand interdisciplinary research team of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria in Canada. The research team is interdisciplinary, composed of medical scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, and nursing, law, and religious studies scholars, split between Canada and Thailand. In Thailand, Mahidol University served as our research partner. In Canada, this project was co-sponsored by the Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia, the Westminster Institute at the University of Western Ontario, and the Department of Native Studies, Brandon University. In terms of ethnic background, the research team included Caucasian, Aboriginal, Chinese, and Thai scholars. Community partners in Canada (all of whom serve a wide culture mix of clients) included: St Joseph’s Hospital, Vancouver, B.C.; the Health Department, Vancouver, B.C.; the Open Arrow Clinic, Carberry, Manitoba; and the Inter-Community Health Centre of London, Ontario. The research work which spanned three years was funded by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Ford Foundation.

Special thanks are due to Centre staff June Bull and Ludgard De Decker for the support they provided the project. Ludgard De Decker saw the . . .